Is there any evidence of a Greenspan put?

Central banks have won in credibility as from the mid-eighties by keeping inflation under control. However, confidence in low inflation might have encouraged agents to excessive risk-taking, leading asset prices to rise. Moreover, the belief in a Federal Reserve guarantee against a sharp market decline spread across US markets as from the nineties. This belief, commonly referred to as the Greenspan put, raised again the question about the role of asset prices in monetary policy decisions. The problem is addressed by modeling the reaction of the Fed to stockmarket deviations from fundamentals over the period stretching from August 1987 to October 2008, which corresponds to the periods where Greenspan until January 2006 and Bernanke from thereon were chairmen. A Taylor rule describing the Fed's nominal feedback rule to inflation and economic activity on a monthly basis is extended to take account of asset prices. The indicators considered are deflation and volatility in stock prices. Furthermore, a Markov switching process allows to capture contemporaneous as well as forward-looking monetary policy responses to asset prices over the period. We find out that taking asset price deflation improves the Taylor rule fit by some 8%. In periods when the Fed was actively pursuing an expansive or restrictive monetary policy, its reaction to volatility or deflation of financial markets was significant. We also see that the reaction of the Fed to asset prices was greater during financial crises, especially when modeling a forward-looking decision process. Agents' confidence in a stronger response of the US central bank to significant market declines urging to an easing of monetary conditions in their favour was therefore not unfounded.monetary policy, nominal feedback rule, asset prices, United States

Reflection and COVID-19: How Students and a Professor Made the Best of Remote Education in a Service-Learning Capstone Course

This paper will provide a critical reflection of a professor’s response to the Pandemic of 2020 and its impact on her service-learning course. The paper will discuss the changes that were made by the professor once the course format changed to remote education. Throughout, comments and reflections from the students as it applies to the assignments they had to complete remotely will be provided, challenges that both the professor and students overcame will be discussed followed by a description of takeaways that were gain from this experience. The paper will end with a message of hope for college professors who do community engaged scholarship in the midst of uncertainty about what the fall semester will look like for institutions of higher education

Environmental ethics and the search for an ecological ethic.

Dept. of Philosophy. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1986 .C687. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 40-07, page: . Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1986

Personality and perceptual style in relation to visual art

This study had three main objects. Firstly, to test hypotheses derived from studies relating to tire Rorschach Ink Blot Test, and related tests, which have shown correlations between personality traits and perceptual styles. In particular, the study focused on the personality traits of emotionality, extraversion, intelligence and imagination, and the perceptual styles of colour, form and movement responsiveness.The second aim was to apply these hypotheses relating perceptual style and personality to response to modern paintings. It was hypothesized that since response to visual art must be at least initially perceptual and perceptual styles are habitual modes of response, perceptual styles elicited by Rorschach and other tests should also be elicited by paintings and relate to hypothesized personality traits.The third object was to derive measures of colour, form and movement responsiveness in relation to paintings, which as well as reflecting perceptual styles, could be said to reflect an "appropriate response" to specific works of art. Paintings were chosen as representative of Expressionist, Cubist and Futurist schools of art. From descriptions of the aims of these movements, by the artists themselves, critics, and art historians it was concluded that they rely for their effects primarily on the representation of colour, form and movement respectively. Response to Expressionist paintings in terms of colour, Cubist in terms of form, and Futurist in terms of movement was therefore considered a reflection of appropriate response, in so far as such responses reflect reaction to the aspect of the painting which the artist intended. In order to explore the relationship of measures of appropriate response to perceptual style and personality traits, these measures were intercorrelated.In general, results confirm the hypotheses relating personality traits and perceptual styles, as measured by Rorschach, specific tests and in response to paintingsThe measure of response to painting which reflected appropriate response most directly was that reflecting percentage of colour, form and movement response to pertinent paintings. It therefore controlled for general tendency to respond indiscriminately in terms of colour, form or movement, and showed little relationship to basic measures of these perceptual styles. This measure was found to relate more closely to various cognitive styles than to personality traits.The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of a theory which views the expression of individual differences — aesthetic, perceptual, cognitive and social — as governed by subsystems of the total personality structure

Digital Humanities and the Common Good

Digital humanities is an emerging field of scholarship, teaching, and outreach, in which digital and computational methods are brought to bear on the traditional materials and questions of the humanities. Some claim this new field will save the humanities; others worry that it will crowd out traditional methods of reading, looking, writing, and teaching. It is our belief that neither of these outcomes is likely. Instead, the authors believe that bringing computational tools to the study of the humanities and humanistic inquiry’s focus on questions of historical perspective and context, ethics, and value to the study of technology will benefit both areas. In this article, we focus specifically on how the humanities in the digital age can be useful for the informed decision making central to crafting effective public policy and how public policies can support this new era of the humanities

Pictures are necessary but not sufficient: Using a range of visual methods to engage users about school design

It has been argued by both educationalists and social researchers that visual methods are particularly appropriate for the investigation of people's experiences of the school environment. The current and expected building work taking place in British schools provides an opportunity for exploration of methods, as well as a need to establish ways to achieve this involvement of a range of school users, including students. This article describes a consultation that was undertaken in a UK secondary school as part of a participatory design process centred on the rebuilding of the school. A range of visual methods, based on photographs and maps, was used to investigate the views of a diverse sample of school users, including students, teachers, technical and support staff and the wider community. Reported here is the experience of using these tools, considering the success of different visually-based methods in engaging a broad cross section of the school community and revealing useful information. Using a range of visual methods allows a complex, but coherent, understanding of the particular school environment to be constructed and developed. It is further argued that such a range of visual and spatial methods is needed to develop appropriate understanding. The study, therefore, contributes to knowledge about specific visual research methods, appreciation of the relationship between tools, and a general methodological understanding of visual methods' utility for developing understanding of the learning environment

Associations of blood pressure with body composition among Afro-Caribbean children in Barbados

Despite complex presentation of adult hypertension and a concomitant obesity epidemic, little is known about overweight in relation to blood pressure among Caribbean children. We examined blood pressure in relation to body size in a cross-sectional study of 573 Barbadian children aged 9–10 years (2010-2011).The United States normative blood pressure percentiles were used to identify children with high (≥ 95th percentile) or high normal blood pressure (90th – 95th percentile). The World Health Organization body mass index cut-off points were used to assess weight status. Major findings: Thirty percent of children were overweight/obese. Percentage fat mass differed between girls (20.4%) and boys (17.72%) (p< 0.05). Mean systolic blood pressure among girls was 106.11 (95% CI 105.05, 107.17) mmHg and 105.23 (104.09, 106.38) for boys. The percentages with high or high-normal mean systolic blood pressurewere14.38% (10.47, 18.29) for girls and 8.08% (4.74, 11.41) for boys. Height and body mass index were independent correlates of systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Mean systolic blood pressure was related to lean mass but not fat mass, while diastolic blood pressure was associated with fat mass index and overweight. Principal conclusion: One third of 9-10 year old children in Barbados were overweight/obese and 12% had elevated mean systolic blood pressure. BP was related to body size. These findings signal potential adverse trends in weight gain and BP trends for children growing up in the context of a country that has recently undergone rapid economic transition

Solstice: An Electronic Journal of Geography and Mathematics: Vol. 31, No. 1

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155623/1/SolsticeVolumeXXXINumber1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155623/4/vitaFull2020.pdfDescription of SolsticeVolumeXXXINumber1.pdf : Solstice, Vol. XXXI, No. 1.Description of vitaFull2020.pdf : CVarlinghau